
Glass ZS^^ ;6 87 

Book V-SZ'^- 



PRESENTED BY 






'' V / 



THE 



SITE OF ANCIENT PHALERUM 



BY 



MITCHELL CARROLL, PH. D. 

HEAD PROFESSOR OF CI,A.SSICAI, PHII,OI,OGY 



Reprint from the G^OROE Washington University Bui^IvETin 
tor October, 1904 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

JUDD & DETWEII.ER, PRINTERS 

19^4 



^ ( 



THE SITE OF ANCIENT PHALERUM. 

BY MiTCHElyL CARROI.L, PH. D. , 
Head Professor of Classical Philology. 

Among the many disputed points in the topography of Athens, 
none involves problems of more serious moment than the site 
of ancient Phalerum ; and its determination would lead to the 
solution of other important questions which now engage the 
attention of topographers. Phalerum was the old seaport town 
of Athens before the ascendency of Themistocles and the rise of 
the Athenian Empire. Its history prior to the building of the 
Piraeus, with its magnificent harbors, was interesting and im- 
portant ; but, eclipsed by the glory of Greater Piraeus, it soon 
became of second-rate importance, famous only for the Long 
Wall reaching from Athens into its territory, for its ancient 
shrines, its pottery, and its anchovies. We wish to review its 
history, to determine its site, and to call attention to the fea- 
tures of Athenian topography which become in consequence 
satisfactorily settled. 

A brief description of the coast line of Attica that borders 
the Athenian plain is essential for the comprehension of the 
problems involved. Southwest of Athens at a distance of from 
three to four miles the coast line is formed by the broad and 
regular Bay of Phalerum, an open roadstead with shelving, 
sandy beach. The Phaleric bay is bounded on the east by the 
rocky headland of Trispyrgi ; on the west by the promontory 
of the Piraeus. Between these two points extends a regular 
stretch of coast line about two and one-half miles in length. 
To the east of the bay the coast line extends southward in 
irregular fashion, affording no shelter for ships at anchor. 
The shelving shore of the bay itself was well adapted for the 
beaching of small ships, but not for the harboring of vessels. 
But just to the west of the bay, where the Piraeic promontory 

(82) 

Gift 
Author 
(Person) 



BULLETIN. Q6 

juts out into the sea, it encloses a small harbor, elliptical in 
shape, now called Fanari, large enough for the needs of a small 
navy. 

Back of this harbor is the hill of Munychia, the highest point 
of the peninsula, to the southwest of which is an almost land- 
locked basin, oval in shape, now known as the harbor of Zea 
or Pashalimani. Beyond this the coast sweeps round in broken, 
irregular curves until it reaches the great harbor of the Piraeus, 
a sheet of water about 8cxd by 1,400 yards in extent. 

Somewhere along the Bay of Phalerum, not far distant from 
the shore, lay in ancient times the deme and town of Phalerum. 
Even in the Heroic Age it was already important as a seaport, 
for from here the hero Phalerus, who gave the town its name, 
sailed with Jason to Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece 
(Pausanias, i, 1-4). From here Menestheus went with his 
Athenian contingent to join the Greek fleet on its way to sacred 
Ilium (Paus., i, i, 2). From here Theseus embarked with the 
fourteen Athenian youths and maidens, to be offered up to the 
savage Minotaur in satisfaction to King Minos of Crete for the 
death of his son Androgens (Paus., i, 1,2). 

Herodotus is our chief authority for the importance of Pha- 
lerum in historical times. He tells how the sons of Pisistratus 
cut down the trees in the plain of Phalerum, making the dis- 
trict fit for horsemen to ride over, and then sent out their 
Thessalian cavalry to attack the camp of the Lacedaemonians, 
who had come at the bidding of the Delphic oracle to overthrow 
the tyrants ; and how they slew many of the enemy, and shut 
up the rest in their ships (Her., v, 63). He tells how the 
Aeginetans once sailed to Athens with ships of war and de- 
vastated Phalerum and many other demes in the coast region 
(v, 81). In his account of the battle of Marathon he tells 
how the barbarians after the battle came and lay with their 
ships in the sea which is off Phalerum — for this was then the 
seaport of the Athenians — and then proceeded to sail back to 
Asia (vi, 116). He later describes how in the battle of Salamis 
the barbarians, whose ships had escaped destruction, fled and 
came to Phalerum to be under the protection of the land army 
(viii, 65-67 ; 91, 92), whence under cover of night they with- 



84 THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY. 

drew their ships to the Hellespont (viii, 107, 108). Meanwhile, 
on Cape Colias, to the east of the Bay, the wrecks of the fleet 
of the Medes were washed up by the waves (Her., viii, 96 ; 
Pans., I, I, 5). 

Pausanias's account of Phalerum in his Description of Attica 
(i, I, 4-5) emphasizes its interest as a spot once of moment, 
but no longer so. He mentions a number of sacred precincts 
and monuments, showing that it was a place abounding in 
hoary traditions. Here were sanctuaries of Zeus, of Demeter, 
of Sciradian Athena erected by an early historical character 
(i, 36, 4). Here were altars of heroes, probably Nausithous, 
the steersman, and Phaeax, the lookout man of Theseus' ship, on 
his voyage to Crete, of the children of Theseus and of Phalerus, 
the eponymous founder ; and here were altars of gods called 
Unknown, probably seen by the Apostle Paul during his sojourn 
in Athens, and suggesting the theme of his Areopagus address 
(Acts xvii : 23). 

We have many references to the fact that, prior to the build- 
ing of Piraeus, Phalerum was the seaport town of Athens, in 
addition to the passage of Herodotus (vi, 116), already cited. 
Pausanias (i, i, 2), Diodorus (xi, 41), and Cornelius Nepos 
(Themist. , i) all mention the fact in commemorating the states- 
manship of Themistocles in building the Piraeus, and their 
statements have reference, not to the bay, but to the harbor, of 
Phalerum. They speak of this harbor as being small and poor, 
not adequate to the needs of the growing metropolis. Hence 
it is clear that we must locate precisely the harbor of Phalerum, 
and this will serve as a stepping-stone in determining the site 
of the deme of the same name. 

Three views are held as to the site of ancient Phalerum: 
(i) Most recent authorities, notably Frazer (Pausanias, 11, p. 
12), agree with Ulrichs {Reisen und Forschungen in Griechen- 
land, II, p. 158 ff.) in placing it near the low rocky height, 
known as Trispyrgi, crowned by the chapel of St. George, at 
the southeast corner of the bay. So firmly settled is this view 
that the spot is now usually called Old Phalerum. (2) Milch- 
hoefer, on the contrary {Karten von Attika, Text, i, p. 24 ff. ; 
II, p. I ff.), would place Phalerum near the chapel of the 



BULLETIN. 85 

Savior, which stands on a conspicuous rocky elevation about 
one and a quarter miles north of St. George and about fourteen 
hundred yards from the sea. (3) Leake ( Topography of Athens, 
p. 308), one of the earliest topographers, located it to the west 
of the Bay of Phalerum, on the eastern slope of Munychia, 
and extending eastward along the bay, practically the site of 
New Phalerum, now a popular resort of Athenians. This view 
has been recently revived by Gardner {Ancient Athens, pp. 
551-553)) aiid we wish by a restatement of the evidence and a 
new interpretation of the facts to show that this is the correct 
location. 

It will simplify the situation, first, to show that Milchhoefer's 
hypothesis is untenable: (i) Phalerum, as has been shown, 
w^as the old port of Athens, and was therefore on the seacoast, 
not 1 ,400 yards away ; (2) the Long Wall between Athens and 
Phalerum, according to Thucydides (11, 13, 7) was thirty-five 
stadia in length, or nearly four miles ; hence a site only one 
and one-half miles from Athens is altogether out of the ques- 
tion. The decision therefore lies between the usually accepted 
hypothesis of Ulrichs, locating Phalerum to the east of the Bay, 
and the recently revived hypothesis of Leake, locating it to the 
west of the Bay of Phalerum. 

I. If we can fix the site of the old harbor of Phalerum it will help 
in determining the site of the town itself. The two chief authori- 
ties on the harbors of Athens are Thucydides and Pausanias. 
Thucydides' (I, 93, 3) statement is as follows : 

^ Eizsiae dk xai too Ileipaiibi^ to. Xoiitd 6 dsfj.iaToxXr/'^ otxodofielu 
(^OTzrjpxTo d* avTov TtpSrepov k-Ki ZTJg kxeivou dp^rjg rjg zar' ^vcaorov 
' AOrjvatoi? ^p^e)^ vorj.t^wi> to re )(iup{ov xaXov elvat^ Xtjj.i>a(^ k'^ov 
T^eT? aoTOipoe't? x. r. A. Pausanias (I, i, 2) probably had this 
Thucydides passage in mind in the following : 8spi(TToxXrj? de J>9 
Tjp^e, ToT<^ Te yap TzXiouffiv iTziTfjdeioTepoq 6 I]£cpatsb? kipaivtTo ol 
Tzpoxslffdai xal Xifxiva? TpeT? avd^ tvo? e^siv too 0a?.7jp(n, tooto 
<T(piaiv iizivsiov elvac xaTeffxeudffaTo. 

The Pausanias passage is misinterpreted by both Leake and 
Gardner, who would confine it to three sections of the great harbor 
of Piraeus, and the Thucydides passage by Leake by a similar 
construction. There is, however, no inconsistency of statement 



86 THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY. 

between Thucydides and Pausanias. Both apply the word Piraeus 
to the entire peninsula ; both refer to three distinct bodies of water, 
the three harbors earlier described ; and the further statements of 
Pausanias show that there is no authority whatever for considering 
three divisions of the great harbor meant, when there is reference 
to three harbors. Thus in ihe next sentence Pausanias adds : 
xal v£(b<^ xat ^? i/is -/y<7av olxoi xa) TT^ot)? toj fjLsytaroj Xtjuzvc rd(po<s 
6£iu(TT<r/2iou<s, manifestly a reference to the great harbor of Piraeus 
as a whole. And after some account of the Piraeus, he continues 
in I, I, 4: iari dk xai a'A/o? ^Adrjvatot? 6 /j.£v ir:} Mouvv/^ia 
Xc/xTjv * * 6 ok in] 0aX7Jpuj, that is, the second of the three 
is the harbor usually called Zea or Pashalimani south of the hill 
of Munychia, and the third what is commonly known as Munychia 
or Fanari, southeast of the hill, the original Pre-Persian harbor 
referred to above [dvO' fvo? e'^stv rob ^aXrjpoT), A study of the 
other passages cited by Milchhoefer {Schrift-Quellen zur Topogra- 
phie von Athe7i, p. cv) confirms this interpretation;' and the ruins 
of ship-sheds is a further evidence that these were the three fortified 
harbors of the Piraeus. (See Gardner, ''Ancient Athens,'' pp. 562- 
563.) 

If we accept the third and smallest of the three harbors of the 
Pirais peninsula as the old harbor of Phalerum, we have the first 
link in the chain of evidence for the determination of the site of 
ancient Phalerum itself. Pausanias expressly speaks of this harbor 
as being in the neighborhood of Phalerum [Xifx-rjv * * 6 dk iirl 
^aX-qpw). Hence the deme and town would hardly be two-and-one- 
half miles away from the harbor at the eastern end of the Bay. 

Other evidence adds to the strength of this position. 

2. Thus Strabo (ix. p. 398) in naming the seacoast demes from 
Piraeus to Sunium, says : /jtera dk rd\> lUtpaid (PaXrjp£T<^ d7//JLo<s iv 
TTj kipe^Yj? napaXia ' eld* "AXifxouaioc Ac^a)vs\(^ ^AXatet? x. r. A., 
stating that the deme Phalerum immediately succeeded along the 
coast eastward the deme Piraeus and was in turn succeeded by the 
deme Halimus. 

3. Next consider the evidence for the site of Halimus, the suc- 
ceeding deme to Phalerum. Milchhoefer {Karten von Attika^ Text, 
1 1. 2) argues with force that Halimus occupied the territory between 
St. George to the east of the Bay, and St. Cosmas, about three miles 

^ Schol. ar. Pax 145 ; Strabo ix, p. 395 ; Com. Nep. Themist. 6; Hesychius s. 
V. Zea ; Timaeus Lex. Plat. p. 260. 



BULLETIN. 87 

further south. This stretch of land is now called Kalamaki, a 
name readily derived from Halimus. Demosthenes (c. Kuboul,, 
p. 1302, 10) states that Halimus was thirty-five furlongs from 
Athens, a distance that would throw it into this territory. Further- 
more, Cape Colias was of this deme, for the Demeter-shrine men- 
tioned as being in its neighborhood (Hesych. s. v. KcuXcd? . IVrf fU 
xai J-^'ir^zix)? hpbv a>nodt 7:ok')(7Ti)ko'A is, according to Plutarch 
(Solon 8), none other than the Thesmophoria sanctuary of Halimus 
(Pans. I, 31, I.) 

4. As to Cape Colias, there are two disputed sites assigned to it — 
the promontory of St. George, so often referred to in this paper, and 
the tongue of land further south known as Cape Cosmas. Ulrichs, 
Bursian, and Frazer adopt the latter site ; Leake, Milchhoefer, and 
Gardner, the former. Pausanias (i, i, 4) states that Cape Colias is 
twenty furlongs distant from the objects mentioned in Phalerum, 
and refers to its Aphrodite shrine. Those who locate Phalerum at 
St. George naturally locate Cape Colias at St. Cosmas in order to 
have the right distance between those points, but in so doing they 
overstep the mark by over five furlongs. Hence evidence for the 
St. George site as Cape Colias is evidence for the location of Pha- 
lerum to the west of the Bay, twenty furlongs away. Now St. 
George can with propriety be called a promotory (axpa), while St. 
Cosmas is merely an ofishoot of land hardly geographically deserv- 
ing the name of cape. Then Pausanias mentions Cape Colias and 
the Aphrodite shrine along with Phalerum, while he reserves men- 
tion of the Thesmophoria shrine of Halimus for the special section 
on demes (i, 31, i ); this he would hardly have done had the 
Aphrodite shrine been as far south as St. Cosmas. Finally, Milch- 
hoefer states that the current which sweeps round the Piraeus 
peninsula could well carry the wrecks of the Persian ships, referred 
to above, to St. George, but not to St. Cosmas. The weight of 
evidence therefore favors St. George as the site of Colias. 

The evidence generally cited for the location of Phalerum at St. 
George is as follows : Pans. I, i, 2, (^dX-qpov di, rao-rj yap k/A^nrzov 
CLTziyji r^? /zo/cw? ij ddXaaaa. Paus. VIH, 10, 4: ^ Ad7jvaioi<^ pkv drj 
nzadi<)o<^ er/.n<Tcv d<fifTT7]y.s ri^9 tzoXsw^ tj Tzpd? 0a/.7Jp(p OdXatrna. Schol. 
Ar. Birds, 1694, wtdXt^v -^ffoTxrav dcpdr/vai h rui (PaX.-qpiy.oi d-iyn^zt 
(rzadioo<i er/.rxr'.. As the eastern end of the Bay near St. George is 
the nearest point of the coast to the city and answers fairly wel \ 
in distance to the twenty furlongs mentioned, these statements are 



88 THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY. 

taken as conclusive proof for the site of the town of Phalerum. 
But the last two passages quoted refer rather to the Bay than to 
the denie of Phalerum, and the first refers merely to the harbor 
nearest the city. The statement of distance is not exact enough 
to be convincing. 

Then, furthermore, actual traces of the Long Wall to Phalerum, 
mentioned by Thucydides, found in the neighborhood of St. George, 
are cited as evidence by the advocates of this site (See Ulrichs, 
Reisen II. p. 162 : Curtius, Att. Stud. I, p. 73 ; Kaupert, Monats- 
ber. d. k. Akad. d. Wiss. zu Berlin p. 632 ff.). Milchhoefer (Karten 
V. Att. II. 2 ff.) later endeavored to trace the remains of the Wall 
detailed by Kaupert, but in vain. In fact throughout this investi- 
gation we have found all evidenoe drawn from remains of walls or 
houses too indefinite to possess any scientific value. 

5. This brings us, however, to our final argument and to a consid- 
eration of the most important corollary to the determination of the 
site of ancient Phalerum — namely, the discussion of the so-called 
Third Long Wall of Athens. 

Most topographers, with the notable exceptions of Leake and 
Gardner, have advocated the existence of a Third Long Wall, called 
the Phaleric, in addition to the two Long Walls to the Piraeus. As 
the remains of this third Long Wall have never been satisfactorily 
traced, nor its utility satisfactorily explained, the reasons for belief 
in its existence have rested mainly on the literary evidence. 

This is as follows : 

a. Plato's expression to dtd fiirrou rtr/oq (Gorgias, 455 E) has 
been taken as evidence of the existence of three Long Walls, one on 
either side of a middle wall in the system of fortifications. Leake, 
however, renders this " the wall between city and port," in which 
sense the term diafxiaoo is used by Dio Chrysostom VI, 87, xairoi 
dtaxoffiiov (TzadiuDv slvat ri^v Tzepifxerpov zwv 'AdTjvwv^ rou Tleipaiiuxs 
(yovTsO£/j.i\^(iu xai T<bv dia/iiffoo rei^wv. 

b. Harpocration s. v. diafiitrou r£r^oo<s : rpicuv ovtcdv ret^cHv iv ttj 
^ Azrurj a>9 xai ^Apt(TT<i<pdvrj<; <pr]<Th iv TptcpdXfjZi^ rou re Bopeioo xai rod 
Nor too xa\ rob ^aXrjptxov x. r. A. This passage of a late lexicog- 
rapher is discounted by Leake, as the Aristophanes passage is not 
extant, and there is nothing to show that the comic poet had ref- 
erence to the Long Walls. 

c. This leaves as the only strong evidence for the existence of 
the Third Long Wall, Thucydides, II, 13, 7: rov re yap (PaXrjptxou 



BULLETIN. 89 

Tei^ou<: ffrdSioL 7)<Tav nivre xai rptdxovra t/jo? tov x'jxXov rou affTew<^ 
xai auroo too xuxXou to (poXaffffo/ievov rpel? xai retrffapaxovra, k'ffri 
de aurou o xac d^oXaxrov >|v, to fxsTa^h tou re fxaxpoo xai too (PaXrjpi- 
xoo. Ta dk ixaxpd Teiy^ri tt^oo? tov lletpatd TsarrapdxovTa ffTadiiov, wj to 
e^wOev iT7]ps~tTo. 

This passage at first reading clearly implies the existence of the 
Phaleric Wall in addition to the Long Walls to Piraeus, but before 
discussing it let us cite the rest of the evidence. 

d. Thucydides himself elsewhere appears to have known only 
two Long Walls, namely, the Phaleric and the Piraeic. See I, 107, i. 
^Hp^avTo de xaTa Tob<^ ^povou? tootoo^ xa). Ta jxaxpd tsi^t) ^? 
Odlaffffav 'AdrjvaJoi oixodofisTv, to ts ^aXrjpovde xa\ to t? Ihipaid. 

e. Aeschines ill. 173, 1^4), Pseudo-Andocides (III. 4-7), and Livy 
(xxi. 26, 8), speak only of two Long Walls, the northern and the 
southern, and were apparently in ignorance of the existence of a 
third. 

f Xenophon (Hellenika II. 2, 15) thus states the demand of the 
Lacedaemonians, after the fall of Athens, for the destruction of the 
Long Walls : ~pooxa?.oovTo de twv fiaxpwv Tec^wv im dixd (TTadioo<i 
xadeXelv ixaripou. 

This passage of Xenophon shows there was certainly no Third 
Long Wall at the close of thePeloponnesianWar. Pausanias (1,2,2) 
in referring to the ruins of the Walls in his day is silent as to the 
Third Wall, and he was doubtless familiar with the passages quoted 
from Thucydides. Those who locate ancient Phalerum at St. George 
necessarily hold to the existence of this Third Wall. They assert 
that the Athenians first built two Long Walls from Athens, one to 
Piraeus and one to Phalerum, which diverged until they were two- 
and-a-half miles apart, leaving the whole space of the coast of the 
Phaleric Bay unprotected and offering perfect freedom to an enemy's 
navy to attack the city ; that, some years after, the Athenians, 
realizing their mistake, built a second wall to Piraeus parallel to the 
northern Long Wall, and permitted the Phaleric Wall to go to 
ruin. 

One argument used for locating Phalerum at St. George was that 
it was only about twenty furlongs from the city. But Thucydides 
states that the Phaleric Wall was thirty-five furlongs in length. 
Kaupert would remove this discrepancy by carrying the Phaleric 
Wall 1 140 yards southwest of St. George, thus making the wall 
thirty-six furlongs in length. But this is hardly plausible. 



dO THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY. 

Now if, in the light of the evidence presented, we locate ancient 
Phalerum to the west of the bay, the southern and the Phaleric 
Wall become identical, the wisdom of the Athenians in the struc- 
ture of their fortifications is justified, the statements of Thucydides 
as to the length of the walls become clear, and the utter lack of 
mention of a so-called Third Wall from the close of the Pelopon- 
nesian War is explained. This leaves only the implied statement 
of Thucydides that there were Long Walls to Piraeus in addition 
to the Phaleric Wall to be accounted for. Leake thinks it was 
merely " a negligence of expression"; Gardner, that " the Piraeic 
Wall which was the more important and the more liable to attack, 
was a double wall, with a face on either side" (Ancient Athens, 
p. 70). But however this passage may b^ interpreted it seems clear 
that the so-called Phaleric Wall from Athens to the east of the bay 
has existed only in the minds of modern topographers, notably 
Wachsmuth, Kaupert, Curtius and Frazer. 

In conclusion, if the site of ancient Phalerum be accepted as being 
to the west of the bay at the eastern foot of the hill of Munychia, 
and extending thence along the coast, we have naturally as its co- 
rollaries the settlement of the disputed problems in regard to the 
harbors of Athens, the site of Cape Colias, the site of the deme 
Halimus, and the so-called Third Long Wall. Surely an hypothesis 
that brings so many data into harmonious relation is logically 
correct. 



LB D '05 



m 16 1905 






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